For the acclaimed author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner, bisexuality has always been more than the “sexual non-preference of the ’90s.” In Look Both Ways, Baumgardner takes a close look at the growing visibility of gay and bisexual characters, performers, and issues on the national cultural stage. Despite the prevalence of bisexuality among Generation X and Y women, she finds that it continues to be marginalized by both gay and straight cultures, and dismissed either as a phase or a cop-out. With intimacy and humor, Baumgardner discusses her own experience as a bisexual, and the struggle she’s undergone to reconcile the privilege she’s garnered as a woman who is perceived as straight and the empowerment and satisfaction she’s derived from her relationships with women.
Part memoir, part pop-culture study, Look Both Ways connects the prominent dots of a bisexual community (Alix Kates Shulman, Ani DiFranco, Rebecca Walker, and, of course, Anne Heche) that Baumgardner argues have bridged feminist aims with those of the gay rights movement. Look Both Ways is a compelling and current study in bisexual lives lived secretly and openly, and an exploration of the lessons learned by writers, artists, and activists who have refused the either/or paradigm defended by both gay and straight communities.
From Booklist
"Images of bisexuality in ads, on TV, and in erotica reflect the lives of real women and girls--including me," Baumgardner says, noting that during the last decade she has encountered "hundreds of girls who have had significant experiences with other women and not simply in order to turn on their boyfriends." She theorizes that female bisexuality represents an evolution in women's feminist consciousness and sexual freedom. Today's high-school and college students, straight-identified and in favor of gay-straight alliances and clubs, will be the next generation of parents, and they will view these struggles over sexuality "as bigoted as segregation." Employing telling details from her own and others' experiences, Baumgardner consistently emphasizes the need for listening to women's stories rather than focusing on the gender of their sex partners. Part memoir, part pop-culture study, part analysis of a bisexual community (including Anne Heche, even), this significant contribution to sociosexual and gender studies helps build bridges from feminism to the gay rights movement. Whitney Scott
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